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OVF target reticle

Tim

Active member
I pretty much set my digital cameras on center spot focusing and use a half press with recompose for many images. With a few that I have a OVF for I am a bit dismayed that there is no marked or etched center target reticle within the OVF.

I think many cameras have either a visible LED within the hot-shoe area you can see while your eye is at the OVF or make a small bip or beep when a half press focus is achieved - so you know when you have a lock. This would be reliable enough if teamed with a OVF center mark for quick focus locks.

Anyone else feel the same about needing a center mark?
or know of add-on hot shoe OVFs that have a center mark?
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Tim, I have not really had the problem. I find the cameras I use an OVF with have a fairly large AF area and the viewfinders have marks in the frame making easy to judge the center. But, you are right, without that rangefinder patch, an OVF looks odd without a center point. I wonder if you could just mark the center with a marker or a piece of tape or even scratching the glass. I think because the mark will not be at the plane of the reticle, there may be a little parallax with eye position, but I think with practice, it would be insignificant.

I am not sure you can disassemble an OVF to get to the reticle, but you might want to try.

BTW, I simply use the sound of the lens to indicate if focus is locked--with the center spot, I rarely misjudge focus.
 

Tim

Active member
Can you explain better what you are talking about? Are we talking about p&s cameras?
Hi Ben, I do waffle a bit. Shashin has it.

I was referring to any type of camera which we slide a hotshoe OVF onto.

What I'd like is all OVFs to have a centre mark or crosshair so that if you use center spot focus mode you would know where the point of focus is when looking through the OVF and taking the picture. One issue is... would this be accurate enough or could there be too much alignment error with a hotshoe?


I wonder if you could just mark the center with a marker or a piece of tape or even scratching the glass.
I did this once as a kid with my Instamatic, it never was really clearly visible.

BTW, I simply use the sound of the lens to indicate if focus is locked--with the center spot, I rarely misjudge focus.
Yep, this was what I was thinking also. either the beep or the LED near the eye on some cameras to indicate that its locked but I need that crosshair to know its in the right spot.
 
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